_Countess._ One of them is.

_Wilhelm._ The fierce one.

_Count._ We will set him free, and wish it were the other.

_Annabella._ Papa! I am glad you are come back without your spurs.

_Countess._ Hush, child, hush.

_Annabella._ Why, mamma? Do not you remember how they tore my frock
when I clung to him at parting? Now I begin to think of him again: I
lose everything between that day and this.

_Countess._ The girl's idle prattle about the spurs has pained you:
always too sensitive; always soon hurt, though never soon offended.

_Count._ O God! O my children! O my wife! it is not the loss of spurs
I now must blush for.

_Annabella._ Indeed, papa, you never can blush at all, until you cut
that horrid beard off.

_Countess._ Well may you say, my own Ludolph, as you do; for most
gallant was your bearing in the battle.

_Count._ Ah! why was it ever fought?

_Countess._ Why were most battles? But they may lead to glory even
through slavery.

_Count._ And to shame and sorrow.

_Countess._ Have I lost the little beauty I possessed, that you hold
my hand so languidly, and turn away your eyes when they meet mine? It
was not so formerly ... unless when first we loved.

That one kiss restores to me all my lost happiness.

Come; the table is ready: there are your old wines upon it: you must
want that refreshment.

_Count._ Go, my sweet children! you must eat your supper before I do.

_Countess._ Run into your own room for it.

_Annabella._ I will not go until papa has patted me again on the
shoulder, now I begin to remember it. I do not much mind the beard: I
grow used to it already: but indeed I liked better to stroke and pat
the smooth laughing cheek, with my arm across the neck behind. It is
very pleasant even so. Am I not grown? I can put the whole length of
my finger between your lips.

_Count._ And now, will not _you_ come, Wilhelm?

_Wilhelm._ I am too tall and too heavy: she is but a child.
[_Whispers._] Yet I think, papa, I am hardly so much of a man but you
may kiss me over again ... if you will not let her see it.

_Countess._ My dears! why do not you go to your supper?

_Annabella._ Because he has come to show us what Turks are like.

_Wilhelm._ Do not be angry with her. Do not look down, papa!

_Count._ Blessings on you both, sweet children!

_Wilhelm._ We may go now.

_Countess._ And now, Ludolph, come to the table, and tell me all your
sufferings.

_Count._ The worst begin here.